trapped... Ah, look! Monsieur Le Duc
almost touched its wing! Well for him, after all, that he did not more
than that! Had he caught it and caged it, and hung the gilt cage in the
boudoir of Madame la Duchesse, doubtless the bird would have turned out
to be but a moping, drooping, moulting creature, with not a song to its
little throat; doubtless the blue colour is but dye, and would soon
have faded from wings and breast. And see! Madame la Duchesse looks a
shade fatigued. She must not exert herself too much. Also, the magic
hour is all but over. Soon there will be sunbeams to dispel the dawn's
vapour; and the Blue Bird, with the sun sparkling on its wings, will
have soared away out of sight. Allons! The little rogue is still at
large.

'MACBETH AND THE WITCHES'

A PAINTING BY COROT, IN THE HERTFORD HOUSE COLLECTION

Look! Across the plain yonder, those three figures, dark and gaunt
against the sky.... Who are they? What are they? One of them is
pointing with rigid arm towards the gnarled trees that from the
hillside stretch out their storm-broken boughs and ragged leaves
against the sky. Shifting thither, my eye discerns through the shadows
two horsemen, riding slowly down the incline. Hush! I hold up a warning
finger to my companion, lest he move. On what strange and secret tryst
have we stumbled? They must not know they are observed. Could we creep
closer up to them? Nay, the plain is so silent: they would hear us; and
so barren: they would surely see us. Here, under cover of this rock, we
can crouch and watch them.... We discern now more clearly those three
expectants. One of them has a cloak of faded blue; it is fluttering in
the wind. Women or men are they? Scarcely human they seem: inauspicious
beings from some world of shadows, magically arisen through that
platform of broken rock whereon they stand. The air around, even the
fair sky above, is fraught by them with I know not what of subtle bale.
One would say they had been waiting here for many days, motionless,
eager but not impatient, knowing that at this hour the two horsemen
would come. And we--it is strange--have we not ere now beheld them
waiting? In some waking dream, surely, we have seen them, and now dimly
recognise them. And the two horsemen, forcing their steeds down the
slope--them, too, we have seen, even so. The light through a break in
the trees faintly reveals them to us. They are accoutred in black
armour. They seem not to be yet aware o